smartweeds in all my gardens and compost ...HATE EM! Why?

[microcollie]

I'm also in Western MA and am just recovering from an abundance of smartweed. 1st, if you pull it after it has flowered, pile it somewhere well out of the way. It sets seed quickly and what may just look like flowers may contain viable seed. 2nd, watch where your hay comes from. If they have it, you're going to as well. Finally, because horses and cows digestive systems often allow seeds to pass through undigested, make sure that your manure has aged enough that most viable seeds will have run their course before spreading it on your gardens. Remember that smartweed is a perennial, so if you can be diligent about pulling, that will be that much less that you'll have to contend with the following year. Luckily, its root system is small and it's easily pulled. Good luck. With a little persevereance, you can get rid of it.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Turn 'em under? Tilling? Like planting them?

Have you forgotten who you are asking, G5?

HG

[garden5]

Turn 'em under? Tilling? Like planting them?

Have you forgotten who you are asking, G5?
HG

Ha, yeah, what was I thinking . I'd don't really till, like with one of those Mantis tillers, just take a narrow hoe and break up the ground. I suppose I'll make sure that the weeds stay on top.

That's my main issue with going no till.......I have to walk in my garden to weed and harvest. As you know, that creates hard paths that pool up with water when it rains. By going over them once a week and breaking them up, I'm able to keep them weeded and loose at the same time.

I'm thinking now that I should have made two long skinny gardens with a walkway in-between rather than just one wide one.

[applestar]

After seeing the discussions about smartweed here in this thread and a couple of others, I left good sized patches of smartweed growing in a couple of locations. Right now, they're in full-bloom and honeybees are ALL OVER them.

[farmerlon]

I am about weeds the same way my grandfather was about snakes. There are three kinds of BAD snakes: Live snake, Dead snakes, and Sticks that look like snakes.

I've got to respectfully disagree with that... snakes are beneficial.
I am not keen on having any poisonous ones around, but a good old blacksnake can do some good.
I've heard of farmers that, if they found a blacksnake in their fields, they would take it to their barns... just so the snakes would be around to take care of mice and rats.

[ACW]

Leave your small weeds on top ,let your worms do the digging for you ,as soon as there is some surface water the worms will pull down dead and dying organics ,that improves the soil texture !

[Toil]

Another candidate for Bokashi!


Or as they call it here, silage. Or, pickled weeds!


Get the tops of those (leave the roots in the soil) weeds in a sealed plastic bag or in a big pile under a tarp. Get some weight on there. Mix that up with straw, hay, or as its own layer, or just throw it around.

Your animals will probably go crazy for the silage as well.